Dead Sea Scrolls

From TSL Encyclopedia

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a group of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts and scrolls discovered at Qumran, near the Dead Sea, in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds. More than eight hundred documents have now been discovered, most in fragments, in the caves near Qumran. They include biblical commentaries, prophecy, community rules and portions of every book of the Hebrew Bible. Most scholars believe that the scrolls belonged to the Essene community at Qumran.

Qumran cave 4, where ninety percent of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found

The Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that the Jewish mystical tradition went back at least to the first, if not the third, century before Christ. The scrolls were hidden just before the Romans invaded Palestine in A.D. 70, and were probably buried by the Jewish inhabitants of the nearby community.

Fragments of ten Enoch manuscripts were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The famous scrolls actually comprise only one part of the total findings at Qumran. Much of the rest was Enochian literature, copies of the Book of Enoch, and other apocryphal works in the Enochian tradition, like the Book of Jubilees. With so many copies around, the Essenes could well have used Enoch as a community prayer book or teacher’s manual and study text.

Our origins in the Essene community

 
Mark and Elizabeth Prophet at Qumran, with the first copy of Climb the Highest Mountain

These Essenes considered themselves to be the inheritors of the dispensation of the children of Israel. They considered themselves to be the only true Israelites. They called themselves the Church of God’s Elect. They lived a very stringent code of ethics and they have left records of their hierarchical structure including advancement within the community based on personal application and personal initiation. Jesus could not have founded Christianity as a brotherhood or a community had it not come out of this foundation.

The teachings of the ascended masters continue the tradition begun by the Essenes. Mother Mary has stated:

Do you know, precious hearts, the angelic hosts of light who assisted in the releases of the Brotherhood that have come to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls (the releases to the Essene community)—those angelic hosts have watched with great rejoicing as those same teachings which have now been brought forth in the Everlasting Gospel of God, Climb the Highest Mountain, have been spread abroad in the hearts and minds of those who are now reading that precious book.[1]

Mark Prophet’s message regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls is that “in them you will find our own community of our own Brotherhood of light. This is where we were together. This is where we anticipated the coming of our Lord. This is our reason for being today. This is our true theology, a more accurate theology of Christ’s message than that which has been preserved in the four gospels.”

See also

Essenes

Sources

Elizabeth Clare Prophet with Erin L. Prophet, Reincarnation: The Missing Link in Christianity, pp. 60, 61.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, lectures, April 5, 1977; December 6, 1980.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil.

  1. Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Mary’s Message for a New Day, pp. 299–300.